Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.
This mixed methods study is one of 21 projects that were commissioned by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as part of its Democracy and Participation Programme. The project involved three components. The first component was to examine the determinants of political involvement and activism in a range of voluntary associations as indicated by the British Household Panel Study. The second component was to carry out questionnaire research on members of four different social movement organisations, namely selected branches of the Labour Party, conservation movement, environmental movement, and a local residents' group in the Manchester area. A postal survey examined the socio-demographic characteristics of members of the case study organisations, and in-depth interviews with members from three organisations (not the residents' association) examined the social networks of members. Here the aim was to examine the extent to which members knew each other, the contexts in which they communicated with other members, and the relationship between intra-organisational networks and other networks of respondents (e.g. based on leisure pursuits, work, etc.) The third phase of the research involved carrying out in-depth interviews with 30 selected activists (29 interviews held at UKDA) from the case study organisation, so allowing the development of activist identities to be examined. The findings permit examination of the nature of social capital in Great Britain by considering how the social networks of members make membership more or less exclusive.
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The quantitative data were collected from four organisations: a local Labour Party branch; a conservation group; an environmental group; and a residents' group in the North West of England. A postal questionnaire obtained socio-demographic characteristics of members of each organisation ('socdem') and a follow-up face-to-face interview with those members who were willing to be re-interviewed provided much fuller information on their networks within the organisation. The follow-up information is contained in three files, 'interview', 'netin' and 'netout'. Information from respondents on the nature of their involvement in the organisation and their political activism is in data file 'interview'. Their network ties were examined through questions on their contacts within the organisation and outside it. A roster of all members was used to prompt respondents to identify all the people they knew in the organisation in a variety of contexts, and each contact identified is listed as a case in the data file 'netin'. Respondents were asked who they met in a variety of contexts, such as dinner parties, and the information for each identified tie is a case in 'netout'. Note that there are no data for the residents' group from the face-to-face interview as they withdrew their co-operation. The qualitative data contain full transcriptions of 29 life history interviews conducted with members of three organisations: a local Labour Party branch; a conservation group; an environmental group. Participants were selected from those who had classified themselves at an earlier stage of the research as 'very active', 'fairly active', 'a little active' and 'not at all active'. The interviews were usually conducted in the respondents' own home, but sometimes in a public space, such as a cafe, according to the wishes of the respondent and lasted anywhere between 45 minutes and three hours depending upon the age of the respondent, the extent of their activity, and factors such as their time availability, enthusiasm and articulacy. An interview schedule was used with open-ended questions clustered around eight themes: activist career; early home life and family; education; employment history; involvement in other organisations; local community; social relationships and leisure activities. The schedule was used flexibly to allow respondents some measure of control over the narrative.
Purposive selection/case studies used for qualitative data (no sampling used for quantitative data)
Face-to-face interview
Postal survey
